When batteries go boom - Emergency equipment and protocols

[Bobster]

@plonkster

Lately I decided I’m okay with my phone listening all the time, because it saves me so much time. We’d be having a discussion about something, over dinner, and I can just go: “Hey google, how old was Winston Churchill when he died?” and the electronic assistant will actually answer it out loud. Really useful…

My voice assistant is no longer playing ball. It responds to “Hey google” by offering me a box in which I can type a query. This spoils my driving time because I used to be able to tell Google to play a certain song, navigate to a certain destination, or calculate the square root of pi.

Maybe it’s because I need to register my voice. That might be sensible, because I don’t want my phone jumping to attention anytime anybody says “hey google”.

There was a story some years ago (uncorroborated, but it makes the point) that had Bill Gates demonstrating voice command at some university. Gee look! You don’t have to type things into this computer any more, you can just tell it what to do.

Then smart asses in the audience start shouting out things like “format c: /q”.

[plonkster]

@Bobster

t responds to “Hey google” by offering me a box in which I can type a query.

Set your language settings to something specific (like English UK or English US, not just generic English), and then reactivate the assistant. I had this exact same issue.

Edit: On this same topic – I should add that to the i3 review – in the i3 you can either short-press the “voice” button on the steering wheel and talk to iDrive, or you can long-press it, in which case it patches the voice command to your phone, so you can do things like say “Play Back in Black on Spotify!” and it will do it.

[TheTerribleTriplet]

@plonkster

So for me, rather the reverse is happening. I’m growing a very severe distrust in the ability of my fellow man, in this day and age of information at your fingertips, to actually know how to use it, and of course misinformation campaigns use this fact to manipulate you. We used to think that ignorance was due to a lack of information. Now, thanks to the internet, we know that is not true.

Absolutely agree. The info out there is silly.

@plonkster

From this I eventually concluded that the vaccines were mostly harmless.

I agree. We don’t have the skills to understand what we are being told, read, research ourselves.

So to that effect, I’m listening to +17 Dr’s (and the group is growing) who share their observations/data/cases/treatments based on their patients, from all over SA.

Their data being BC (Before Covid) and AC (After Covid). Something is most definitely not right for SOME people.

It is about:
Had Covid, no vaccines, what happens to SOME people, even years later?
No Covid, had vaccines - which one the most prominent question, the effect that has on SOME people, also years later for some.
No COVID and no vaccines, obviously too.

As a result of my woes in the last 2 years, based on these doctors sharing their data, I have had treatment to reverse some of the Covid (I had it) aftereffects, I had the vaccine too, and there is also treatment for that for SOME people, to mitigate the results.

Covid is a bliksim for SOME people.
Covid vaccines too, again, for SOME people.

Here is the whammy: What is not known yet is the long-term effects of Covid … and the vaccines … on SOME people.

To force vaccinating the world was a bad BAD move by POLITICIANS.
The silver lining, mRNA research was given an immense boost ito research on humans.

[TheTerribleTriplet]

@Phil.g00

… so why not treat batteries with the same reverence?

And the lawnmower fuel, and/or chemicals stored in garages, under the sinc?

Cellphone batteries, my pal’s house burnt down. Wife bought a new charger, phone was dead, so they left it to charge on their big wood dining room table. When they got home, the fire dept was there already, half the house gone. No one was hurt.

Or you drive over a bridge and a ship makes it come tumbling down … ok, that is pushing it.

[plonkster]

For me, I tend to think the boring answer is usually the correct one.

We know that the virus itself had severe long-term effects on a small percentage of people. This part I consider unavoidable: You cannot avoid getting ill forever, at some point you’re going to get it.

We also know that vaccines, in general, exposes you to a weaker form (or a similar pathogen) of the evildoer to generate an immune response. Therefore we should expect, in the most boring way possible, that in another tiny group of people, you have the potential for the same long term effects, aka “vaccine injuries”. From where I am sitting, we got exactly what we expected. The stats all agree, if we’re looking at the raw numbers only, there are orders more people who were hurt by the virus than by the vaccines. We don’t need to go all tin-foil-hat on this, the facts are boring enough as they are

There are many other factors as well, that I think is often forgotten, since hindsight is 20/20. By locking people down, we prevented a HEAP of people from getting the Alpha variant. The vast majority of people got infected by the milder Delta and Omicron variants. Those same people then preaches to the world that “it was only a mild flu” and “the lockdown was unnecessary”. Yeah, we can talk about that… but you cannot make that argument until you’ve fully quantified the effect we got from essentially choosing which variant people were exposed to.

Counterfactuals are hard to work with. Sometimes we only know the answers of the world we live in, not the one we might have lived in if we did things differently, and as a result… I am still severely allergic to most arguments claiming malice… (here we go again ).

[TheTerribleTriplet]

@plonkster

The vast majority of people got infected by the milder Delta and Omicron variants.

20/20 hindsight, it turns out, the virus was out months before the LD’s, all over the world. Then, by the time it hit in full force, the world also learned how fragile our society/economy is.

But yeah, this was the first “big one”. With facts, fiction and total garbage all mixed up in one big confusing message.

As I said before, told the wife in Dec before LD’s, darling, something is potting here. 3 days before LD we went and “played prepper/prepper”. We never had to shop for 6 months, not vaping juice nor alcohol. We also leant how to “smokkel”, and hide from roadblocks.

How did I “know” to “look out, something is potting” in Dec? I read copious amounts of novels over the years on disasters/virusses etc for fun/relaxation.

The ONLY difference between the novels and real-life Covid was the death rate. Novels are like +80%.

The rest, the politicians, Gov’s, WHO, LD’s, social media, and internet impact, FB “experts posting whilst sitting on a toilet” … the writers nailed it! Spot on, the novels, of what could happen, and then happened.

Covid was literally like reading a good novel written by authors who did their research … literally. No jokes.

The Gov’s/people maybe should read more … or speak to experts on the subject matters, as the authors did.

[plonkster]

This video came across my feed. Products are being developed to deal with this, and it does seem to greatly improve the situation.

In this video he says that there is only enough oxygen in the cathode to continue the fire long enough to set the neighbouring cells alight. You are not going to have gas jets and flames shooting out if you can get rid of the free oxygen (in the air). The recipe here seems to be to use a fire blanket, and then cool it down with water mist. He says that with this product, they can put a fire out in about half an hour.

This product may well work with ICEVs as well.

EV Battery Fires: Unraveling the mystery. What We Have Learned

[Village_Idiot]

So, the Table Mountain cableway fire is not exactly news anymore but the headlines about the “lithium fire” does have me curious.

There are no publicly available details about the battery system or useful information about the incident. Considering the overall complexity and demands of the system, and the liability risk for a public company it seems unlikely that they ordered a couple of drop-in replacements from takelaot or got a “guy with a bakkie” PV installer to stick some white label batteries on a wall.

Based on info from the 2022-2023 annual report the battery system has likely been operational for about 11 months.

During 2019 the Table Mountain Diesel based backup system had a malfunction during stage 6 loadshedding

visitors who were stuck on the top of the mountain on Monday 9 December 2019 when our backup generator failed to kick into gear, are now being safely brought down from the mountain.

Power surges are believed to have caused the failure of our generator.

The Swiss company responsible for the design of the tabel Mountain cableway systems started offering a battery-based system. This ESFOR (Energy Storage System For Ropeways) system is LTO cell based

If LiFePO4 is the equivalent of a Maltese Poodle in terms of likelihood to bite you (fire hazard etc), LTO, going by the online marketing info is a Golden Retriever on Valium.

Looking at images of the lower cable station there is a chance that what looks like “smoke” is the product of batteries off-gassing without open flames (?) ,

but it also appears that there definitely was heat involved looking at the aftermath and the cableway company publicly stating that they had structural engineers inspect the structure for damage caused by the fire.

Considering the perceived excellence of the engineers and the apparent high safety standards of the cableway company (annual complete shutdown for maintenance involving the Swiss OEM) it will be very interesting to know what happened - even more so IF, I repeat IF the Swiss LTO based system was installed at Table Mountain.

[TheTerribleTriplet]

@Village_Idiot

LiFePO4 is the equivalent of a Maltese Poodle in terms of likelihood to bite you (fire hazard etc), LTO, going by the online marketing info is a Golden Retriever on Valium.

I fell off my chair laughing when I read that. Epic!!!

[plonkster]

@Village_Idiot

If LiFePO4 is the equivalent of a Maltese Poodle in terms of likelihood to bite you (fire hazard etc), LTO, going by the online marketing info is a Golden Retriever on Valium.

LTO, as you say, is really unlikely to start a fire. But like the other chemistries, it will off gas and that will produce hydrogen, and that is of course extremely flammable. But then, they were water cooled as well, if it was the Swiss system that was installed.

[Richard_Mackay]

Just amazing this lack of information. (Maybe they think we are unable to understand?)
There was no power outages at the time as far as I could gather but CT does use storage from Steenbras dam. Maybe a spike during switchover caused this??

[TheTerribleTriplet]

I rest my case …

1.7K views · 11K reactions | Repost from @behindtheshield911 • I’ve seen so...

[plonkster]

Can you expand on this point a bit? We all know that if you puncture an NMC battery like that, the results are not pretty. Yet we happily carry such a battery 2 inches from the crown jewels every day of our lives

[TheTerribleTriplet]

@plonkster

Can you expand on this point a bit?

You want to carry that 2 inches from total disaster, sorry to hear about that.
My NMC battery, far from any “jewels” at all times.

Back to the post though.
This “submerge it in water” to bring a lithium runaway reaction under control, is not so far fetched.

How to do it practically, and in real life under extreme duress, THAT is question to ponder on.

[plonkster]

@TheTerribleTriplet

This “submerge it in water” to bring a lithium runaway reaction under control, is not so far fetched.

Aaah ok. That clears it up, thanks.

[Village_Idiot]

@TheTerribleTriplet

rest my case

before the jury start deliberating…

the video with almost immediate extinguishing of flames is impressive but they (source of the “water dunking table”) have another video where the flame is around for longer and probably more importantly quite some time after things look all calm the same/another cell ignites while under the water.

That tank is 920mm deep and 2700mm x1900mm (holding about 3300 litres liquid). If the main advantage of water immersion is cooling, how much cooling effect might you lose if you scale it down to fit in the house/garage?

So, while not far fetched I don’t see this sort of thing being practically viable in a residential setup - especially if wanting to make provision for an unattended thermal event.

A less complicated and less messy option might be to try and reduce/eliminate thermal propagation between neighbouring cells through the use of insulating materials between cells. This seems to be a big part in EV battery safety.

Example of cell forced into thermal runaway while insulating material (red arrow) prevented spread to the other cell.

Vid showing silicone type material

Vid showing foam type material

Not much help with DIY banks but another option is to look at batteries that are UL 9540 certified.

Example:

If anyone is intersted the original source of the “water dunking table” videos is a Austrian company that recycles vehicles - including EV’s. (video is time stamped to the “less impressive” result).

HV Zerlegetisch Reaktion 2

[TheTerribleTriplet]

@Village_Idiot

Before the jury start deliberating…

Yes, there is not much deliberating on the cards. Jury can go home.

See, my OEM idea was super cool wire cutting tool + gasmask + protective clothing + pool with batts on wheels. Pool has been backfilled …

Those other materials to protect the other cells, that looks really promising, even for DIY banks.

[Village_Idiot]

Going by the number of actual reported incidents in the South African media, the fire risk from batteries appears to not yet be overly concerning. Apart from the Table Mountain incident I found 3 incidents identified as battery related fires (maybe there are many more on the whatsapp groups etc?)

1. the “Lithium battery” fire that wasn’t Lithium at all.

• 23 November 2024
• Steve Biko Academic Hospital
• Gauteng Department of Health statement labeled this as

UPS lithium batteries back up system which had a leak and caught fire

• Part of the semi sealed Lead Calcium battery bank for a UPS appears to have caught fire (as opposed to the more usual exploding of lead acid batteries?).
• By the look of things, judicial use of powder type extinguishers got things mostly under control.

2. the Lithium Battery fire that served as an advert for specialised (expensive) Lithium fire extinguishers

• 27February 2024.
• Residential battery system in Centurion.
• Very little public info on the batteries but based on published charge voltages should be LiFePO4.
• Big name security company responded to the fire and pointed out on their social media the use of their branded special fire extinguisher
• Things that caught my eye: (1) Time/effort needed if decision is made to remove batteries from the structure/home/garage (needing to open up trunking, cut cables, etc). (2) note bolt cutter used to open up battery box. (3) note uncredited use of the home garden hose (unclear whether before or after the magic extinguisher). (4) wonder how much use the magic goo would be if the battery is still on the wall?

3. Another one from north of the Juksei River…

• 1 December 2024.
• Residential system.
• This one is interesting for 3 reasons.
  (1) the battery system in the photos appears to be one of the local batteries (as in, except the cells, being produced and assembled in South Africa vs white label branded imports).
  (2) the description of the event from the volunteer fire crew that attended the scene after an initial response from a fire department

a Lithium battery reignited due to a thermal runaway some time after Firefighters extinguished the fire.
*_{emphasis my own}

(3) the apparent open flames from what I assume to be a/the battery when removed from the garage.

maybe 4, wonder about the wisdom of having a gas geyser in the same space as a fairly big battery system (pilot light meets venting battery gas…).

This last incident apparently also involved an exploding gas cylinder. Sequence of events are not clear, although the official statement from Emergency services stated

two lithium iron batteries had burst causing the fire in the garage…heat generated blew up a gas cylinder.

The reigniting, open flames and size of flaming object make me wonder if perhaps there might also have been something like an eBike battery in the garage and that it was actually not the home storage battery that was on fire?

[TheTerribleTriplet]

Thanks @Village_Idiot

Personally I’m 99% sure that Lifepo4 is as safe as it can be, not forgetting I’m quite aware of monitoring the “expense” regularly.

@Village_Idiot

… gas geyser in the same space as a fairly big battery system …

1st highly recommended referred gas installer, yes, we can install the gas geyser and cylinders in the garage with a CoC issued.

2nd highly accredited gas installer, if that is the requirement we prefer to not install.

Gas cylinders and geyser are installed outside as per 2nd installer.

… and now I may want consider to install the solar system, and batteries, in the garage …

Ps. If I install the batteries in the garage, I have 9mm thick Nutec offcuts that I’m considering installing around the batts … because 1) I have them and 2) they cannot burn, so why not make sure the batts are well ventilated, then using Nutec, channel the heat a bit.

But then I ponder again, it having been shot down in “flames” , if they are going into the garage, why not put them in a deep metal container, that if the need ever does arise, the fireman can fill the container with water …